Lycamobile Review: Cheap International Calls & Pay As You Go Bundles

Lycamobile offers low-cost international calls from 1p/minute and coverage from the O2 network.

In the UK, Lycamobile is a specialist mobile network offering SIM cards designed for low-cost international calling. Using coverage from O2 as their network coverage provider, customers on Lycamobile can call other countries from 1p/minute.

In this article, we’ll review the Lycamobile service and compare it to the cost of international calling on other UK mobile networks. We’ll also look at bundle availability and how long your can expect your credit to last for. Finally, we’ll also look at coverage on Lycamobile and how you can move your phone number to the network.

Pricing & Bundles

UK Rates

If you’re inside the UK and haven’t subscribed to a 30-day bundle, Lycamobile will charge you its standard Pay As You Go rates. These are currently 19p/minute for calling UK mobiles and 12p/minute for calling UK landlines. You’ll also pay 19p for every text message you send, and 12p for every megabyte of data you use.

23p/minute access charge
+ service charge from the company you’re calling

Messaging Rates:

Text Message (SMS)

19p

Picture Message (MMS)

Not available.

Internet Rates:

Mobile Internet

12p/MB

Lycamobile is actually relatively expensive for usage inside the UK, compared to other Pay As You Go networks like O2 and Three which charge as little as 3p/minute, 2p/text and 1p/MB. For this reason, you’ll need to weigh up any potential savings on international calling versus the additional amount you might need to pay for usage in the UK.

One advantage of Lycamobile that’s worth briefly mentioning is you can make free calls and texts to other Lycamobile customers. You’ll get this whenever you top-up as part of their offer with your free calls and texts being valid for the rest of the calendar month. For this reason, you should top-up at the start of each calendar month if you want to maximise the benefit you can receive from the offer.

International Rates

The main selling point of Lycamobile’s service in the UK is they’ll allow you to call abroad from 1p/minute. This is in contrast to the major mobile networks which can sometimes charge you up to £1.50/minute.

The following table shows the per-minute cost of calling abroad to selected countries when using a Lycamobile SIM card:

Country

Calls to Mobile

Calls to Landline

Text Message

China (+86)

3p/minute

1p/minute

19p/message

India (+91)

2p/minute

2p/minute

19p/message

Ireland (+353)

19p/minute

7p/minute

19p/message

Italy (+39)

19p/minute

7p/minute

19p/message

Pakistan (+92)

8p/minute

8p/minute

19p/message

Poland (+48)

5p/minute

1p/minute

19p/message

Romania (+40)

5p/minute

1p/minute

19p/message

Sri Lanka (+94)

15p/minute

12p/minute

19p/message

Turkey (+90)

12p/minute

3p/minute

19p/message

United States (+1)

6p/minute

6p/minute

19p/message

Cost of international calls & international text messages on the Lycamobile network (calls & texts made to a phone number in another country whilst you're in the UK). Last updated on 8th January 2018. Source: lycamobile.co.uk.

In general, Lebara Mobile, the main competitor of Lycamobile in the UK, tends to have slightly cheaper rates overall.

Based on an analysis of the cost of calling 210 countries, Lebara Mobile was cheaper than Lycamobile 45% of the time. In 5% of cases, Lycamobile was cheaper and in the other 50%, the two networks were tied.

Lebara Mobile was cheaper

Tied

Lycamobile was cheaper

94 countries (45%)

105 countries (50%)

11 countries (5%)

Lycamobile VS Lebara Mobile rate comparison for 210 countries. Calculated from the per-minute rates for international calling to a mobile phone. Comparison was carried out on the 8th January 2018.

Amongst the 94 destinations where Lebara Mobile was cheaper (e.g. including China, Italy, Turkey and the USA), the per-minute rates were on average one-third lower compared to Lycamobile.

Occasionally, special opt-in offers are available on both Lebara Mobile and Lycamobile for even cheaper rates compared to what is listed in the table above. You’ll normally need to opt-in to these offers (e.g. once per month) and additional requirements may also apply (e.g. you may be required to top-up a certain amount on a regular basis).

30-Day Bundles

If you’re a regular mobile user, it might be better value to convert your Pay As You Go credit into a 30-day bundle. With a bundle, you’ll be buying your airtime in bulk. You’ll receive a certain allowance of minutes, texts and mobile internet to use at any time over the next 30 days.

On certain bundles, you’ll receive an inclusive allowance of 100 international minutes which can be used for calling selected countries that are listed on the Lycamobile website.

For customers who mainly call abroad and who are not concerned by UK allowances, Lycamobile also offers a number of international bundles and single county plans (e.g. for calling Jamaica, Nigeria, Pakistan, Uganda, Ghana or China).

Bundle Codes

You can buy a 30-day bundle from your Lycamobile credit by texting the relevant shortcode as follows:

Voucher Code Offers

At the time of writing, Lycamobile is offering 50% off the first purchase of selected bundles for new customers joining their network. The discount is not available to existing Lycamobile customers.

As an ongoing offer, students with a NUS Extra card can get 10% off all of their Lycamobile top-ups. To get the discount, you’ll need to register your NUS Extra card number to your Lycamobile account. More information about how to do this can be found on the Lycamobile website.

Comparison to Alternatives

In the following section, we’ll compare the Lycamobile offering against what is available on rival mobile networks:

International Calling

The following table shows a side-by-side comparison of per-minute rates for international calling on a number of Pay As You Go networks. Some of the rates will require you to opt-in for international calling offers (e.g. on EE, O2 and Vodafone).

Country

Cost of calling abroad from the UK (per minute)

China (+86)

3p(3p to landline)

2p(2p to landline)

2p(1p to landline)

3p(1p to landline)

2p(1.5p to landline)

1.5p(1.5p to landline)

India (+91)

5p

2p

2p

2p

2p

1.5p

Ireland (+353)

8p(1p to landline)

5p(2p to landline)

9p(5p to landline)

19p(7p to landline)

5p(1p to landline)

25p(5p to landline)

Italy (+39)

7p(3p to landline)

3p(3p to landline)

9p(5p to landline)

19p(7p to landline)

10p(2p to landline)

25p(5p to landline)

Pakistan (+92)

10p(10p to landline)

8p(8p to landline)

8p(4p to landline)

8p(8p to landline)

6p(6p to landline)

30p(12p to landline)

Poland (+48)

5p(1p to landline)

5p(1p to landline)

5p(2p to landline)

5p(1p to landline)

5p(1p to landline)

25p(5p to landline)

Romania (+40)

5p(1p to landline)

2p(2p to landline)

5p(2p to landline)

5p(1p to landline)

4p(1p to landline)

25p(5p to landline)

Sri Lanka (+94)

20p(15p to landline)

22p(14p to landline)

15p(12p to landline)

15p(12p to landline)

18p(15p to landline)

30p(12p to landline)

Turkey (+90)

12p(5p to landline)

11p(3p to landline)

9p(3p to landline)

12p(3p to landline)

12p(3p to landline)

25p(5p to landline)

United States (+1)

3p

2p

5p

6p

2p

1.5p

Cost of calling abroad from a UK mobile network (per minute). As the headline figure, we've shown the per-minute cost of calling a mobile phone number. Where a lower price applies for calling landline numbers, this is shown separately in brackets. Last updated on 8th January 2018. Source: ee.co.uk, giffgaff.com, mobile.lebara.com, lycamobile.co.uk, o2.co.uk, vodafone.co.uk.

If you’re making a large number of international phone calls, it may be worth choosing to buy an international calling bundle. Lebara Mobile has a number of All In One bundles offering 500 international minutes from £10/month and 1000 international minutes from £15/month. You’ll also receive an inclusive allowance of UK minutes, texts and internet.

£15 per month bundles

This compares fairly favourable to what is available on other mobile networks, but a larger allowance of international minutes can be found on other networks. For instance, Lebara Mobile offers 500 international minutes and 3GB of mobile data or 1,000 international minutes and 1GB of mobile data for £15/month.

£20 per month bundles

Once again, this compares fairly favourably to other networks. However, larger data allowances are available for the same monthly price if you’re not concerned about the inclusive international minutes (e.g. you can get Always-On data from giffgaff or 12GB of data from Three).

For a larger allowance of international minutes, Lebara Mobile offers up to 1000 international minutes with their All In One bundles.

Credit Expiry & Inactivity

On Lycamobile, top-ups will expire after 90 days.

On Lycamobile, your Pay As You Go credit will expire 90 days after the date of the relevant top-up. If your credit isn’t used within this 90-day window, it will expire and will no longer be available for you to use.

In addition, to keep your SIM card active, you should make a chargeable event or top-up at least once every 120 days. Chargeable events typically include making an outgoing phone call, sending a text message or accessing the mobile internet. You’ll receive a reminder from Lycamobile if you haven’t used your SIM card for a period of 90 days.

Network & Coverage

2G, 3G & 4G Coverage from O2

Lycamobile is a virtual network operator using O2 as their network coverage provider. Customers using Lycamobile should therefore receive the same level of coverage as customers on O2. At the time of writing, this is 99% population coverage for calling and texting. There’s also 97% population coverage for high-speed 4G internet.

The offer is for non-commercial, private, personal use only – Lycamobile reserves the right to withdraw or suspend the offer or to disconnect you if we suspect that offer is being used for commercial purposes, for conferencing, or if it is not being used in a handset (in a SIM box for example), if it is being used for tethering or if any reason Lycamobile reasonably suspects that you are not acting in accordance with this policy where we consider that the usage was illegitimate.

As an incentive for moving your phone number over, you’ll receive up to £15 of free credit for doing this. This consists of £2.50 bonus credit immediately upon transferring your phone number. You’ll then get an additional £2.50/month in the following five months providing you top-up your SIM card each month (the minimum top-up is £5 each time).

If you’d like to transfer your number to Lycamobile, start by contacting your old mobile network and asking them for a PAC Code. A PAC Code is nine-digits long and will authorise the transfer of your phone number to Lycamobile. It’s a legal requirement for your old mobile network to provide you with this.

Please note: it isn’t possible to transfer Pay As You Go credit from another network to Lycamobile. For this reason, you should try to use up any remaining credit on your old mobile network before moving your number to Lycamobile.

Niko constantreplied:

they do ship overseas lyca have several websites for each country plus all you had to do was ring customer service on lyca and get it done that way ok lyca is a good network one of the best try what I said 1st then if all else fails come back then and talk ish ok

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About Ken

My passion is helping people to get the most out of their mobile phone. I've been blogging at Ken's Tech Tips since 2005.

Aside from writing about mobile technology, I have an interest in software development, digital marketing and physics. Outside of the blog, I work with numerous technology companies helping them to market their product to consumers. Find out more.